According to Research and Markets the Global Blockchain market is estimated to reach $6,076.6M by 2023, and expected to grow at a CAGR of 48.37% during the forecast period. The North American region is dominating the global Blockchain market.

Money is flowing into the sector as the global potential is being recognized. At the recent Blockchain Expo in Santa Clara, the technology was positioned as 'revolutionizing the world economy'.

Jason Kelley, General Manager, Blockchain Services, IBM leads into his keynote presentation with, "We've entered a new era where truth isn't subjective, but collective — where radical transparency is uprooting how we interact, transact and drive growth. Leading organizations and consortia across industries are rapidly unleashing the exponential business value of blockchain technologies. More than a new technology, it's a whole new playing field."

Chris Ballinger, CFO and Head of Mobility Services, Toyota Research Institute talked about using Blockchain in autonomous vehicles. He said they are involved in IoT platforms, smart robots, machine learning, and Blockchain. He explained to the audience how Blockchain is a perfect match for IoT in that all of the things that Blockchain does will solve the vulnerabilities of IoT.

He also said on a personal note that although he did not own bitcoin, "I do care about bitcoin and I think it matters a lot."

Recent Funding News:

Marathon Patent Group (NASDAQ: MARA) announced on December 12th that it agreed to sell 1,000,000 shares of its common stock for gross proceeds of approximately $5.0 million. Each share of common stock is being sold at a price of $5.00 per share. On a recent conference call the company talked about its entry into the sector. "On November 2 of this year, Marathon announced that it had entered into a definitive purchase agreement to acquire 100% ownership of Global Bit Ventures Inc. Global Bit Ventures http://www.globalbitventures.com currently owns 1,000 GPU mining servers capable of 250 gigahash per second of mining power for the mining of ether on the ethereum blockchain. Over the past few weeks, 700 servers were installed. Of those servers, 300 servers are running and producing revenue while the remaining 400 servers are expected to be generating revenue imminently. The final 300 servers will be assembled and installed and are anticipated to come online shortly. In addition to the 1,000 servers capable of mining ether, Global Bit Ventures plans to add 14 petahash per second of ASIC hashing servers for the mining of bitcoin. Global Bit Ventures operates in a robust and low-cost data center infrastructure with significant capability for expansion."

HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. (Quote) announced up to $100 Million Financing (led by GMP Securities L.P. and Eventus Capital Corp.) and that it has entered into binding letter agreements dated December 13, 2017 with its strategic partner and major shareholder, Genesis Mining Ltd., the largest digital currency mining hashpower provider, to significantly expand the Company's digital currency mining operations in Sweden in 2018, including the addition of a large-scale Bitcoin mining facility.

This major expansion will increase HIVE's energy consumption dedicated to digital currency mining from a targeted 17.4 megawatts ("MW") in March 2018 to 24.2 MW in April 2018, escalating to an expected 44.2 MW by September 2018, and will include:

a new ASIC-based data centre in Sweden, with hardware procured and assembled by Genesis on behalf of HIVE for consideration of an estimated US$34 million and expected to come online in September 2018. The hardware will consist of the latest generation of Bitcoin mining rigs and will operate at an estimated rate of 200 petahashes per second ("PH/s") and support an approximate consumption of 20 MW of electricity; and

a third phase (additional 6.8 MW) of the Company's previously-announced GPU-based data centre in Sweden, customized for mining GPU-based digital currencies (e.g., Ethereum), for consideration of an estimated US$22 million and expected completion in April 2018.

"The addition of Bitcoin mining capability further establishes HIVE as a leader in digital currency mining and diversifies our revenue with a highly liquid currency," commented Harry Pokrandt, President, CEO and a Director at HIVE. "Our new Bitcoin facility will be among the most energy-efficient and largest Bitcoin mining farms in Europe. This facility will complement our large-scale GPU-based facilities being built in Sweden and currently operating in Iceland, and allow us to diversify from mining GPU-driven consensus algorithms to also include SHA-256 consensus algorithms. Sweden, like Iceland, is an excellent jurisdiction for HIVE with its abundant cheap electricity, good governance, and cool climate."

Transeastern Power Trust (Quote) announced a $40 Million Private Placement Offering and proposed change of name to Blockchain Power Trust.The Offering is expected to close in early January 2018, subject to certain conditions typical for a transaction of this nature.

Subsequent to the completion of the Offering and the acquisition of the OMV Wind Project, the Trust intends to establish a data center operation containing hardware (the "Mining Equipment") to mine the digital currency Bitcoin ("BTC") predominantly using electricity produced from the OMV Wind Project. The Trust has received a non-binding term sheet for EUR16,500,000 of project level debt financing from a European bank, which will be used indirectly to acquire the Mining Equipment. It is intended that the Trust will power the Mining Equipment primarily through the electricity generated from the OMV Wind Project. The Mining Equipment is expected to have an installed capacity of 10.05 MW base load and 90.7 PH/s processing power. The Trust has entered into a non-binding purchase order for the Mining Equipment and anticipates the Mining Equipment to be installed in phases and fully operational within six months of entering into the binding purchase order. The Trust currently anticipates the acquisition and installation of the Mining Equipment will cost approximately $23,000,000.

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